History of the Peloponnesian War

And the same Thucydides the Athenian has also written the history of these transactions in order, as they severally happened, by summers and winters, until the Lacedaemonians and their allies put an end to the sovereignty of the Athenians, and took the long walls and Piraeus. To the time of that event there were spent in the war seven and twenty years in all. With regard to the intervening arrangement, if any one shall object to consider it as a state of war, he will not estimate it rightly.

For let him [*]( On this use of διήρηται, see Poppo or Bloomfield.—With regard to the τέ in this clause, it is the opinion of Göller that it refers to καὶ before εὑρήσει: but Poppo observes in opposition to this, that the imperative ἀθρείτω has a conditional force, as it frequently has in Greek, Latin, German, and French: si quis spectaverit, inveniet; and therefore that τέ has no force. Arnold and Bloomfield consider that it is answered by ἔξω τε τούτων. First of all, the treaty was in itself practically inefficient, inasmuch as its very stipulations were not all fulfilled; and then there were mutual causes of complaint with respect to other matters of which the treaty had made no mention. ) regard it as it is characterized by the facts of the case, and he will find that there is no reason for its being deemed a state of peace; since during it they neither gave nor received back all they had arranged to do; and besides this, there were offences committed on both sides, as in the case of the Mantinean and Epidaurian wars, and other instances; and the Thrace-ward allies were in no respect less at war than before; while the Boeeotians had only a truce from one ten days to another.

Including, therefore, the first war of ten years, the suspicious cessation of hostilities which followed it, and the subsequent war which succeeded to that, any one will find that the number of years was what I have mentioned, (reckoning by the great divisions of time,) with only a few days' difference; and that such as positively asserted any thing on the strength of oracles, found this the only fact which proved true.

At least I, for my own part, remember that all along, both at the beginning of the war, and till it was brought to a conclusion, it was alleged by many that it was to last thrice nine years.

And I lived on through the whole of it, being of an age to comprehend events, and paying attention, in order to gain accurate knowledge on each point. It was also my lot to be banished my country twenty years after my command at Amphipolis; and thus, by being present at the transactions of either party, and especially of the Peloponnesians, in consequence of my banishment, to gain at my leisure a more perfect acquaintance with each of them.

The difference, then, which arose after the ten years, and the breaking up of the treaty, and the subsequent course of hostilities, I will now relate.

When, then, the fifty years' treaty had been concluded, and the [*](αἱ ξυμμαχίαι.] Poppo remarks, in his note on 48. 1, on this use of the plural noun with reference to a single alliance; but does not offer any explanation of it. Probably it arises from the separate ratification of the alliance by each of the two states so that it may be regarded as a twofold transaction.) alliance afterwards, the embassies from the Peloponnese, which had been summoned for that business, returned from Lacedaemon. Accordingly the rest went home;

but the Corinthians repaired to Argos, and in the first place held communications with some of the Argives who were in office, to the effect that, since the Lacedaemonians, not for the good, but for the subjugation of the Peloponnese, had entered into treaty and alliance with the Athenians, who were before their bitterest enemies; the Argives ought to consider how the Peloponnese might be preserved; and to pass a decree, that any city of the Greeks that wished, being independent, and giving judicial satisfaction for wrongs, on fair and equal terms, might enter into alliance with the Argives, on condition of defending each other's country: and that they should appoint a few persons as commissioners with full powers, instead of the discussion of the measure being held before the people; in order that those might not be known who had failed to persuade the multitude. And they asserted that many would come over to them for hatred of the Lacedaemonians.

The Corinthians then, having suggested these things, returned home.

When those of the Argives who heard their proposals had reported them to the government and the people, the Argives passed the decree, and chose twelve men, with whom any one of the Greeks who wished should conclude an alliance, except the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, neither of whom should have liberty to enter into treaty without the consent of the Argive people.

The Argives acceded the more readily to these proposals, because they saw that they should have the war with the Lacedaemonians, (for their treaty with them was on the point of expiring,) and also because they hoped to gain the supremacy of the Peloponnese. For at that time Lacedaemon was in very bad repute, and was despised in consequence of its misfortunes; while the Argives were in an excellent condition in all respects, as they had taken no part in the war against Athens, but had rather reaped the good fruits of having been in treaty with both sides.